A Pyre of Wings
by ironeye2106
Summary: A Robin. Such a small bird. Almost too fragile to exist in this big bad world of Capes and Criminals. A place where even the slightest weakness could spell the end of innocent life. It's insignificant. It's delicate. It's feeble. Too much of all these things to save anyone in such a world. How then, can it gain the strength to finally fly from the nest?


When did this all go so horribly wrong?

I can hear the blood spilling next to me. The screams of my friends echoing like a banshee's wail. Their gurgled gasps making my blind eyes dream of the horrific tortures that they were being subjected to.

I was bound. Like meat to the butcher, I waited for my end. Hoped for it. Anything to get rid of the long, painful screams beside me. Anything to cleanse my disgusting, horrible sins.

But I lay in morbid disappointment as I was not harmed. Not a scratch, not a cut, nor even a bruise. I waited for seemingly endless hours...listening. Listening to their painful cries. To their sobs of unrestrained agony. To their pleas for mercy that fell forgotten on the ears of whatever Gods that dwelled mockingly above.

When it was finished, and the blood lapped against my bare feet, I heard one single voice speak out to me through the loud silence.

"It's your fault."

It was a dark sound, that carried itself smoothly and prominently. The words rung in my mind with such power, that I ceased all struggle, knowing any sort of escape was ultimately futile.

Heavy footsteps scraped against the wet ground, before stopping a foot away from my face. I held my breath, counting the seconds it took for me to finally join my friends in whatever void they were subject to.

A hand gripped my cheek roughly, before ripping off the cloth that had obscured my vision.

Orange and black and a single eye met my gaze.

"It will happen again Robin. Your family will be torn from you, and you shall be helpless to stop it."

* * *

My eyes snap open to the view of a dark room. My body is entangled in a sheet of silk, like a luxurious garrotte, and my skin is flush with freezing sweat. I look around rapidly, taking in the familiar space.

It is my room.

I let my head fall back onto the cold pillow below, and take a few deep, relieved breaths.

It was that dream again. I've been having it more, recently. It's always the same; bound, helpless, vulnerable. The screams of people close to me is always different though, like it's cycling through a catalogue of people that I love and choosing whatever sounded the most disturbing.

Rolling over to look at the clock on the drawer next to me, I notice that it's barely past four o'clock in the morning. Might as well get up.

I dress myself in some casual wear; a hoodie and some old jeans I found in the big ornate wardrobe that took up the far wall. Cheap sneakers that had seen one too many mud puddles were soon on my feet and taking me outside the Manor. Taking a look back at it, I just had to once again marvel at it's architecture. A big Gothic thing, something ripped straight from Elizabethan moors, with it's grand spikes and spires and seething gargoyles. I commend whatever past member of the Wayne family that saw over it's construction. He obviously had a good eye for aesthetics.

It was a long walk to the inner city of Gotham, but It was worth it I suppose. There's just this ambiance with the dark metropolis this early in the morning, where even the most insane and violent of criminals are sleeping away like children. It's nice to finally hear the quiet, the silence. I'm always with quirky friends or the loud ramblings of some paparazzi, that it becomes somewhat difficult to just bask in what Gotham really is. An empty city.

The dream is still burning hot in my memory though. The screams, the pleas, the colours, _that eye_...I just can't seem to shake it until I'm back focussed on some mission with the team. It sickens me that it's even been conjured up in this head of mine. Must mean I've got one too many loose screws.

I chuckle at that thought. How right I was.

"S-someone! Help me! Help, please!"

My head snaps to my right, and without thinking, I take off down an alleyway to where the sound came from. Years of being a Cape has made rushing to pleas for help a second nature.

"Get away fro-"

I hear a loud thwack, followed by a thump on the ground. I speed up my sprint.

I turn the corner of the alley, to see the figure of a man, thick with a beer gullet, looming over the body of a young woman. He's got a grin on his face as he begins to straddle her, unbuckling his Texas shaped belt.

Thinking quickly, I pick up the first thing that's next to me; a glass bottle. I pause for a second to aim, then hurl it at his bearded face with all my might, letting my arm loose like a readied coil.

He makes a slight whimper before rolling off of the young woman, the impact knocking him out cold.

I dart over to the prone woman.

"Miss? Are you okay Miss?" I question, my voice already evolving into the usual Cape tone.

She was red-headed, with pale, porcelain-like skin, dotted with reddish freckles. A cute, heart-shaped face, with a slightly upturned nose reminded me of Barbara in a way. Her eyes however, were a darkened brown, and looked wet as if from crying.

At this moment, I suddenly realise they are still, and un-blinking.

Thinking that it's merely shock from the recent events, I prod her with comforts.

"Everything's gonna be okay! Don't wor-" I stop, feeling something wet leak onto my hand. I look down.

Red. A big pool of crimson water drowns my fingers. The ground hungrily drinks it. Her neck viciously opened, pours it out like an open river. The cut is deep, and travels far from one side to the other. No chance of any kind of survival.

She's dead.

I take a step away from the cooling corpse, and turn away from it. Even through all the years of seeing some of the sickest, most twisted shit imaginable, it never gets any better. You either hate it or love it, and I sure as hell don't want to be on the other side of the spectrum.

I take another peak at the body, seeing her pale complexion turning even paler. It's a chalk white when I finally manage to swallow my bile and move my feet over to her. I check her pockets for identification, hoping for a sign of who to contact. It's always better for a parent to hear the news from a Cape than a Cop. Makes it feel like it was destined to happen, that there was just no changing it. If a superhero couldn't save their child, who could?

 _I could_ , I hear myself say.

It's my fault. I wasn't fast enough. I wasn't strong enough to stop this from happening. Maybe if I wasn't walking without a care in the world, I might have got here first, before him.

I'm trembling. I've never trembled. Superhero's don't tremble. Batman doesn't tremble.

But I can't stop it. I'm weak. It's because of me that this woman died. She didn't have to die. I could have saved her. This could have been one of my friends. It could have been Wally. It could have been Barbara...

I was...

 _"-helpless to stop it."_

Damn it, that dream! Was this what it meant? That I'm too weak? That I can't save anyone?

When did I start to cry? I've never cried. This feels odd. Alien. It's not me. I'm Robin, The Boy Wonder. Not this. Never this...

God I'm pathetic.

I can't bring myself to call her parents this time. I can't like this. I hear the beginning of some sirens close in on the alley, and decide to slip away while I still can. It's a simple thing, climbing the buildings, but I still manage to almost slip at the top.

Definitely not me today.

I wait for a moment, to see the killer being hauled away. There's a policeman hovering over the woman. A brown coat. Grey hair, with a signature moustache.

I leave, knowing the redheads in good hands. Better hands than mine anyway.


End file.
